I find it hard to accept that Senator Chris Coons, graduate of Amherst and Yale (MA, JD) can really be an idiot. But when you go on cable news shows and utter a flat-out idiotic statement repeatedly as Coons did today, you can’t be allowed to get away with it.

The latest Donald Trump high crime (Monday it was because he’s fat) was that he dared to have a second, unpublicized, informal meeting with Putin at the G-20. Since everything Trump does or says is a scandal, CNN and HLN were reporting this like Putin and Trump were found nude in bed together, despite the fact that nothing in the world stops the President of the United States from talking to anyone he wants to, for any reason. Never mind, Senator Coons told CNN, shaking his head somberly like Angela Lansbury would do on every episode of “Murder She Wrote” when she discovered that some old friend had offed someone. The problem, Coons said, was that Trump didn’t bring a US translator and relied on Putin’s, which the Senator called a “basic failure in terms of national security protocol.” How so? he was asked. Coons replied that there was no way for Trump to know, without his own translator, if the Russian translator was accurately translating what Trump said and whether what Putin said was accurately translated to Trump.

Think about this for a minute, as I hope Coons did not.

First of all, Putin speaks English and understands it, by all accounts. A translator who misled Trump would be asking for a one-way trip to Siberia. So that’s extremely unlikely. Equally as unlikely would be a translator intentionally misrepresenting what Trump said to Putin, for the same reason. Trump would also not know whether a U.S. translator was interpreting accurately, though Putin would. The President allowing Putin’s translator to go it alone might be a gesture of trust to the Russian leader. Whatever it is, it’s not a scandal, and all “basic failure in terms of national security protocol” means is “that’s not the usual way we do it.”

The way they usually do it, apparently, is have someone present at all Presidential meetings who will leak what was said to the news media.

But keep crying “wolf,” Democrats, news media. I’m sure it will work for you. No, really. It’s a great strategy.

17 responses to “Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month: Senator Chris Coons (D-Del)”

I have heard this parroted over and over again on the news over the last couple days. It just does not pass the sniff test. Frankly the media narrative leaves me confused. What does Putin have to gain by misrepresenting his communication with Trump? He can’t embarrass Trump with it, Trump does not speak Russian, so it is not embarrassing if he does not understand Russian. It is not like they finalized some treaty, or did anything formal whatsoever. It just makes no sense.

I agree that the nefarious motives attributed to the meeting are being overblown. I did hear this morning (and now I can’t remember who it was) who said that the meeting itself wasn’t ominous, but that if it was a substantial meeting (this is In dispute also) there should be a record of what was promised or agreed to by both sides. He seemed to think that if Trump could recall accurately what was said so that it could be recorded, that would suffice. According to him, any meeting the President has should have a record, and that is the problem.

Since I’m here, I’m sure you’ve already heard about it but Jeff Flake (R-AZ) should be an Ethics Hero.

The translator complaint is silly, but don’t you think an off-the-record meeting is, at the very least, supremely stupid at this point? Trump’s campaign is being investigated for possible collusion with Russia; Trump is being investigated for possible interference with that investigation; his son is the latest person to have been found to have lied about meeting with Russian individuals during the campaign; said son told multiple lies last week about the details of a meeting with Russian individuals who claimed to be passing along information from the Russian government, and now we know one of the eight (not five, as Don Jr. initially reported) people at that meeting is a former honest-to-goodness Russian spy.

Trump should be keeping as much distance between himself and Putin as possible, as anyone remotely familiar with politics would advise him to do. But he isn’t, and he won’t. Why?

“don’t you think an off-the-record meeting is, at the very least, supremely stupid at this point?”

Not particularly. I don’t see a reason to adjust to the psychosis and neurosis of the opposition. This is the kind of meeting is routine, necessary, and had generally be seen as a good thing before the left became cripplingly afraid of all thing Cyrillic. Foreign relations? Say it isn’t so. No, I think it says more about you, and people like you, that you think the meeting either shouldn’t have happened, or that the president needed a babysitter.

Well-said, and accurate. Opponents determined to kick you out of the office you were elected to drum up suspicion based on rumors and innuendo, and you let that affect how you do your job? Weak and foolish

Both your arguments are based on false premises, Jack and HT. The FBI investigation into the Trump campaign’s improper relationship with Russia is not “partisan harassment” or based on “the psychosis and neurosis of the opposition,” and the premise that it is becomes less and less tenable with each passing day. As long as this investigation goes on, meetings like this create the appearance of impropriety.

I would like examples of off-the-books meetings between heads of state without any support staff around being “routine, necessary, and generally seen as a good thing,” HT.

Wonder why this was never mentioned when GWB was chatting with Putin at the Beijing Olympics? Right there in the stands. No translators at all. Just a couple of guys discussing athletes. Oh, well. Another time, I guess.

dragin_dragon wrote, “Wonder why this was never mentioned when GWB was chatting with Putin at the Beijing Olympics? Right there in the stands. No translators at all. Just a couple of guys discussing athletes. Oh, well. Another time, I guess.”

The only way national security could be at risk is if the translator already had access to sensitive information. Wouldn’t an U S translator be in a better position to be privy to our secrets than a Russian one and if not how would a US translator know if Trump made statements that were secret or sensitive and thus not communicate those statements ?

No. For a couple of reasons… First and foremost that it isn’t a translators job to censor the President of The United States. Second is that the President has the power to unilaterally declassify anything he chooses to.

And perhaps tangentially… Sometimes a meeting is just a meeting. There are things that two world leaders could discuss that would not reach any level of classification… Heck, probably more things than not.

I think someone should ask Senator Coons who exactly it is that defines what these national security protocols he is claiming are being violated by President Trump; very specifically, who defines what the national security protocols are for the President of he United States in regards to his conversations with others?

Maybe Senator Coons thinks he can define how the President of The United is to speak with others.

The leftist press and politicos- on TV, in print and online- have been at it non-stop since they got their butts handed to them in November. The lengths they will go to to degrade every conceivable aspect of President Trump is both amazing and appalling. Don’t these people understand that, to any rational person regardless of affiliation, they’ve just blown what little credibility that wasn’t trashed leading up to the election? Don’t these leftist politicians understand that jumping into that same swamp will not render them squeaky clean if, for some dismaying reason, they decide to reinflict themselves on their constituents? Or do both simianistic sectors figure that they have nothing to lose at this point?? They may be right in that last regard. Perhaps they sense that history is about to shake their excrement off his boots and move on!